One of our clients recently turned 100 years old. Another turned 97 just the other day. Both of these individuals are great examples of the habits common to long-lived individuals. They spend time with their loved ones, never stopped interacting with the outside world, and stayed physically active when possible.
We don’t control everything about our lives, but these are helpful reminders to do the things that make our lives richer.
This week’s items are focused on fun.
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The NCAA Tournament for men’s and women’s college basketball is coming next week. You can join our bracket group here. The password is “Lowry.” See if you can beat the team!
Geoguessr is a popular game for the geography nerds among us.
You can play old video games on your web browser on this site. We love classic Zelda games.
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Q: Oil prices (and gas prices) have jumped. What does this mean for us?
A: This is one of the most-discussed issues of the conflict with Iran. As we mentioned last week, the duration of the conflict will determine how much this affects economic growth and inflation. There has been a recent drop in market prices, but it is relatively small and within a totally normal range for sentiment-driven fluctuation.
It is instructive to look at other times when prices have been high. When adjusted for inflation, current prices are far lower than other periods of disruption. The United States is in a stronger position in terms of energy production than many of those times.
Higher oil prices makes it more attractive for producers to increase supply. This takes time but can help prompt growth in an important sector of the economy.
We stress these scenarios because making major changes based on short-term actions is often a bad strategy. From Commonwealth’s blog:
Peter Lynch, the famous Fidelity portfolio manager, once said that people have lost more money preparing for a correction than they lose in corrections themselves. And the above chart shows that. Despite the sell-offs that have and will continue to occur every year, in the past 23 years, we have had only three with negative total returns greater than 1 percent.
There are real risks of the war becoming more disruptive to the economy and markets, but as we said last week, it is too soon to tell.
*Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Diversification does not assure a profit or protect against loss in declining markets.